


A Moment of Peace

by Edwardina



Category: Dexter (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, Rape/Non-con References, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-16
Updated: 2010-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:03:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edwardina/pseuds/Edwardina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dexter lets Lumen sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Moment of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> Written post 507, before any other episodes had aired. I did not write this to be Dexter/Lumen, but there is a non-sexual D/s element inherent in their relationship to me that is probably evident... but just read it however you prefer.

Lumen is asleep.

The house is an empty shell around her, the suburbs a shell around it, and Miami the biggest shell of all, swallowing the rainbow rows of patinaed houses and palm trees and her all in one gulp. She's a shell of herself, too, her mind the smallest, innermost, most delicate doll of all in the matryoshka set in Dexter's hands.

It's mid-morning, just after Mommy and Me, and Harrison and Lumen are both down for their naps, Harrison on his thick blue blanket and Lumen curled up in a fetal position beside him. The table's spread, instead of a roast or the remnants of a successful pizza night, is a feast of print-outs, newspaper clippings, and loose Post-Its with urgent scribbles in all capital letters. It's all laid out in a halo around her chair, like an actual map of Lumen's jumbled brain that Dexter can look over. Receipts for the few things Lumen has bought (besides supplies for Cole's kill room) since her return to society -- the flashlight, ink for the printer, the sleek black wig she'd disguised herself with. _Rape Survivors Speak Out. Local Dentist Found Slain._ Her breakfast plate, half of the three silver dollar pancakes Dexter had made sitting there soggy and untouched. _Sex Slavery in America._ Cell phone bill. _"Rape Club": One Woman's Shocking Story. Jordan Chase and the Herd Mind Hypocrisy_ \-- sounds like a bad thriller. A mug full of coffee, just sipped at once before Dexter told her to lie down.

"I won't sleep. I've been drinking coffee all night."

"That doesn't matter. Just relax and let me do the work for a little while."

Lumen had pressed her lips together unhappily, but pushed the laptop at Dexter and shifted her focus to Harrison. Dexter had watched her slowly bend down and touch his son's back, say soft hellos and lie by his side to watch him. It wasn't a minute before they were both asleep, peaceful and small.

Now Dexter has a moment of peace, too.

He starts by hiding the coffee.

Shattered. That's what their man, Jordan Chase, _tick tick tick_ , had said they were. In pieces. Not whole. Little does Jordan Chase know that soon, he'll be in pieces too. Literally.

It's on. Not tonight, not for days. Depending on Chase, it might be weeks before he's back in Florida, but if he had anything to do with Lumen's capture and torture -- or that of any of the women in barrels -- sooner or later he's going to pay for it in blood. The smell of it is in the air, practically tangy on Dexter's tongue.

This is part of the ritual, the planning before the execution. It's not like the moment of death, but it's the foreplay that leads up to that orgasmic instant of perfect silence. No more struggling. No more crying out through a gag or cussing or begging and pleading. Just peace. Just completion. The darkness in Dexter takes over utterly. The buzzing of the power saws and their hungry teeth ripping through flesh and rending it in two and that steady, drenching seep of warm blood that tells him, _This is over. Over forever_ \-- that's another part of the ritual.

Lumen's darkness isn't the same as Dexter's, but they overlap like two pieces of Harrison's A-B-C puzzle, with its thick wooden knobs and cheery painted-on letters. They correspond; they were broken inside by the evils of the world, and here is where their gaps and edges fit together to make the picture whole again. Click click click.

As much as Dexter would love to feel his knife sinking through Chase's heart to stutter and stop its self-important beating, he's thinking of Lumen, considering her.

He's considering letting Lumen hold the knife.

That moment, that peace, is her primal desire. She should be the one to _take it_.

He thinks she can do it -- she already shot Dan the dentist and helped prepare their kill room for Cole, so he knows she's capable. And smart. That's what continually keeps taking Dexter aback, alternately impressing and annoying him -- how smart Lumen is, and how single-minded. If he weren't helping her, she'd be after her abductors on her own and would probably have failed by now and gotten herself killed. Maybe she wouldn't be dead in a barrel without Boyd as her disposer, but these men are so dangerous, she would still be dead. Shot and left in an alley like a hooker... perhaps buried in a shallow grave only to surface after hurricane waters flood her out. She could be silenced of any number of ways.

For Lumen, it's kill or be killed, and she's clinging to option A.

It's the same thing Dexter would do.

But for now, he's got to help her. She needs more help than she realizes, and Dexter is the one person who can give it to her.

Time is lost. Afternoon sun makes the room warm and stuffy. Dexter's phone buzzes twice; the screen reads UNKNOWN, so they're not from the station, family, or Sonya. He doesn't bother answering. He taps the keys on his laptop gently, staying as quiet as possible (luckily that's one of his many skills). Even a car rolling by bouncing bass thick enough to feel through the floor for a fleeting few moments doesn't really hit any of them. It isn't until Harrison rolls over onto all fours and stares at Dexter, emitting a pleased squeal, that the moment of peace slips out of their grasp. Lumen wakes up with a jerk, sitting up straight immediately and turning dark, deep eyes ringing with alarm onto Dexter.

"See? You slept," says Dexter, friendly. Harrison is trying to get up and amble over to him, still a clumsy walker, his diaper's gravity working against him. He goes plunk. Lumen blinks at him, rapid-fire, coming back into herself.

"How long?" she wants to know.

"Hour and a half."

"Oh." Looking suddenly fuzzy, Lumen grasps at her head for a moment, then awkwardly smooths her hair down as if she meant to do that all along, forcing herself into a semblance of normalcy.

"It's good," Dexter says, and turns in his seat to grab Harrison, scooping him up with a cheerful grunt of effort. "It's good to take naps. Harrison certainly thinks so."

"Naps are all I take," Lumen mumbles.

"They're better than nothing."

She clutches her arms around her knees, folding herself in half there on the floor, becoming as small and guarded as possible. He wonders if she had bad dreams.

"Lunchtime," Dexter informs Harrison, and Lumen by proxy.

"Are you leaving?"

"I have to drop Harrison off with the baby-sitter and get to the station eventually," Dexter says. "But I brought peaches, cottage cheese, and Cheerios." He doesn't miss the way Lumen's forehead wrinkles and adds, "For Harrison."

"I just want coffee."

"There is no more coffee," Dexter responds.

"There's a whole can."

"No, there's not."

"Yes, there is." Now she's up, limbs kinetic. She's on the frail side of slender. Her sleeves are too long, stretchy cotton cuffs gripped in her nervous fists. "I made some a few hours ago. I know there's a whole can in there. It's new."

But there isn't. Not anymore. Now the can's in Dexter's bag amongst the manila folders of casework, spray-bottles of luminol, and Harrison's snacks and erroneously furry stuffed shark. He watches Lumen open every cabinet and drawer in the kitchen with an expression of increasing suspicion. They're mostly empty, none of the brightly-colored dishes Rita had collected in there anymore, none of the kids' cups or packages of Goldfish snacks. There's just a couple of basic plates and mugs from Target that get used and reused and never put away. Lumen hasn't even opened most of the packages of food Dexter bought for her. Easy Mac isn't exactly appealing to him either, but at least he'd tried.

Lumen finally turns, leaning with a slump against the counter.

"Why'd you take it?"

"Because you can't live on coffee. Believe me, I've tried." Memories, fractured as they are, of dozing off at the wheel, flipping his car, and winding up in the hospital are still vividly with him. "What you need is to eat real food and get real sleep."

She sniffs at him, glancing out the kitchen window. "You know I can't sleep."

"You can. You just did."

"That's 'cause you were here. I knew if anyone came for me, you'd be there, and you'd... take care of them. Take care of _me_."

Dexter knows that already. That's why he's even here; it's not like he really needs Lumen's help to plan a kill. But he does need her to be awake and alert, for her body to not break down on him from all the abuse. And he does want to take care of her, in his own way.

"I can't stay here all the time," he says, retreading unnecessarily over old statements. "I have work. Harrison. A life that keeps on going."

"Rub it in, why don't you," Lumen says loudly, voice shaking with something Dexter can't exactly identify. Impatience. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Lumen is full of all of these things at random times and it brims over, tears in her eyes and voice struggling to get out of her strangled throat.

Harrison just about gets his finger up Dexter's nose right then, reaching up to grab his attention. It's definitely lunchtime.

"If I abandon my normal routine, it becomes a liability. Suspicious. Not to mention if I don't show up for work, I'll get fired, and if I don't go home, my baby-sitter will probably quit."

Lumen's mouth is tight. "I know. You have to go. I know. But you could at least tell me where you put the coffee."

"There is no more coffee. Not until you eat some lunch."

Sullen. "But I'm not hungry."

"That's not the point," Dexter says, standing with Harrison heavy in one arm. This has got to get drilled into Lumen's head. She's got to have a routine, a code. The Code of Dexter. "If we're going to do this, you have to do what I tell you. You know I'm not trying to hurt you or control you like those men did. I'm not like them."

"I know you're not." Lumen stares at him as he comes around the counter, and even though she knows he's not going to hurt her, especially not with his son in his arms, just being approached makes her uneasy. But she fights it down, reaching out after a second to take Harrison from him, her thin arms embracing his flesh and blood capably. "Fine," she says shortly, her small fingers combing through the strawberry-blond naptime curls on Harrison's head. "It's lunchtime."

If Dexter had a heart, the sight of this missing piece settling into place, this damaged woman holding his son as if put in his life to complete their broken family, might make it hurt and beat a little harder, both.

As it is, he just asks, "Pizza?"


End file.
